


Sfumato

by Gail Riordan (lferion)



Series: Theme and Timbre [2]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Romance, TPM, atmosphere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-12
Updated: 2001-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/Gail%20Riordan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As fuel on the fire, as smoke on the wind</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sfumato

**Author's Note:**

> Notes &amp; Acknowledgements: Thank you to RavenD for giving this a once-over and letting me play in her sandbox. Thank you to Mark for friendship &amp; reality-checks, Layna and Ruth for enthusiasm and encouragement, and the San Francisco Symphony for aural inspiration.
> 
> Ambiance: Bruckner's 3rd Symphony

_Sfumato: Very lightly, like a vanishing smoke wreath._

 

I watch him - am with him - but from a distance, always.

I watch, but may not touch.

We cannot touch.

(Heat-haze on the desert. Smoke on the wind.)

I am with him when his heart cries out, when his dreams are black with need and fire and pain. When his memories and meditations are dazzling or desolate, warm or cold or numb. When he remembers to remember beauty and peace, when he holds to hope and light and love.

I am with him, always. Sometimes, he knows that. Sometimes the Force wills that he may hear, or see, or otherwise perceive my presence. Always at need, never at something so ephemeral as desire.

But not to touch.

The Force is universal, not personal, not in this, this blind, a-personal imperative for balance, for equilibrium, against an utterly personal devouring darkness. Instruments of the Will of the Force, in service to the Light, we are, we were, and more than matter or spirit.

We may have served the Force, the universe, the Light, but oh, I fear we did not serve ourselves. Matter and spirit may both know pain and loss and weariness in the face of blinding light.

I was blind, and now I am smoke, vapour, memory and will. I do not feel like a being of light. I know he all too often does not. And yet we both hold fast to belief. Hope. Love.

Sometimes it seems a punishment, not a boon, that I may be with, but not with, see and hear but not speak or show. That he may be with, but not with, believe but not know, reach but not hold. I, who would touch, teach, move, uphold and comfort, must but intangibly witness. He, who preferred to think things out thoroughly, must act without assurance.

But he speaks to me sometimes, believing I can hear, will hear, even when we cannot touch.

He waits for a hope to grow, And I wait, sustained by hope, shielding sparks against the darkness. Holding fast to hopes and beliefs and loves long unvoiced, but not unknown, long tucked away, but never abandoned.

(Oh, his spirit is still quick, unbowed, alive to irony and humor and perspective. In this, too, he is a far wiser man than I. I see too much the pain, the terror, the greed and desolation the hands of Darkness have unleashed, the betrayals I fear I would not have had the strength to endure, as he did, in flesh and presence. In spirit was difficult enough. But I would not leave him. I could not. Not alone with only the impersonal, the imperative Force, however light.)

He has tempered himself on the forge of Light, spending his substance in the fire of need. Burnt away youth and strength and all illusion in the crucible of unforgiving necessity. It grieves me that he is yet younger than I was when the pyre took me from him, and his flesh seems far older. Oh, not bent, not broken, but an age of experience that weighs on him.

The currents of change are come. Smoke knows the wind.

Soon. Soon we will both be free - released from waiting, unbound by need and will and obligation. Other hands, other spirits are coming into their own, bourne on the winds of hope, born in the fires of love. Soon we will be free to touch, to twine and join as we will.

The sparks have been shielded, the light will soon burst forth.

But until then, as smoke wreathes fire, I am with him. I watch over him, and turn his dreams from blood and darkness as I may.

Invisible fingers brush against a visible cheek. Lightly, so lightly. "Soon, beloved. Soon."

In his sleep he moves, and sighs. Hands reach and close. "Soon."

In waiting, hope. In loving, love. This is not darkness but the dim, grey hour before the dawn. Intangible but not untouched, I am with him, and he with me.

Far over the brightening hills there is a plume of smoke.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Phoenix in Smoke](https://archiveofourown.org/works/76181) by [Gail Riordan (lferion)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/Gail%20Riordan)




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